International Migration Debates Within the Context of Turkey-European Union Relations

The primary objectives of this study, that examines the problematic of migration between Turkey and the EU within the period between 2004, the date that the EU has decided to start the negotiation process with Turkey and 2015 and 2025 as the time period frequently foreseen as the target date for membership to the Union; include the following points: (a) The determination of the EU’s position in relation to international migration, (b) Manifestation of Turkey’s position in relation to international migration, (c) The position of the immigrants migrating or that are probable to migrate from Turkey to be probed according to the trilogy of migration receiving countries, source countries and the migrants on the basis of the three main actors of migration being a necessity of international migration studies; Emerging especially from the thesis of “demographic complementariness”, the discussion of the question as to whether Turkey’s demographic transformation will make any contribution to the demographic transformation within the EU in the context of international migration; Turkey’s position within the EU-centred international migration regime to be examined in respect to the country’s characteristics of a “source”, “receiving” and “transit country”; the evaluation of the scenarios regarding as to what kind of a course could be followed by the possible migration movements in terms of their direction and magnitude in case of Turkey’s EU membership within the framework of economic, social, cultural, political and demographic results; the possible migration scenarios in case of Turkey’s EU membership not taking place and their evaluation within the framework of economic, social, cultural, political and demographic cause and effect relationship. This report titled, “International Migration Debates Within the Context of Turkey-European Union Relations” has been written by Prof. Dr. Ahmet İçduygu in the framework of the activities conducted by TÜSİAD’s Social Affairs Commission.